


Martin Makes Friends with all the Avatars Through Bops

by Whooly_Shep



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Except for Jonah Magnus, Friendship, Jonmartin rights, M/M, Martin Blackwood centric, Martin Blackwood is groovy, Overuse of ABBA songs, Pining, Pining Martin Blackwood, References to ABBA, Songfic, but like not as bad, canon typical eldritch horrors, kind of but not really, sarcastic martin rights, the entities all wanna befriend him because of it, the gang's all here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24356374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whooly_Shep/pseuds/Whooly_Shep
Summary: Martin has learned to know what to expect in life. Day in day out do your job and then go home. However everything starts going south when after a long day at the archives he decides to take the metro to go home. Who knew that all it would take for Martin's life to change drastically would be listening to Abba and some dance moves?Or Martin makes friends with all the avatars one song and a lot of dance moves at a time and stops the panopticon before it even happens.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Everyone, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 24
Kudos: 108





	1. The Buried

Martin is riding down the tube after a long day at work when it first happens. After a long day in the archives Martin is simply put, very tired. Between running around to try to prove to Jon that he’s not an incompetent useless idiot and Tim’s unhelpful mocking, today has been a handful and a half.It’s late, far later than when Martin would usually be heading home. Martin can’t help but think that it must really be later than he thought when he notices that nobody else is on the same wagon as him. Something that has probably never happened to Martin before. Usually they’re overcrowded but that’s mainly because Martin always takes them during rush hour.

Martin likes to have a fixed schedule, arrive to work at a specific time, leave work at a specific time and take the Tube at a specific time. This unfortunately means that his routine of being stuck in the busiest time of day has now been cemented forever. The only times he deviates from his routine is when he goes out with Tim and Sasha (and sometimes Jon when he feels like it).

Martin sits back and decides he’s had enough of the monotone whirring and rumbling and takes out his phone and headphones to listen to some music. He decides to listen to the best hits of the seventies to nineties because why not.

He’s five songs in and one station away from home when the wagon abruptly stops moving.

Martin takes out one of earbuds to hear what’s happening. Just as he does so a voice crackles over speakers he’s unable to spot. He can online assume it’s the conductor speaking because who else would it be.

“Passengers, we are currently experiencing some... mechanical problems. This could take a while so sit back while we try to deal with the situation.”

As soon as the message ends Martin falls back into his seat with a sigh and his hand tiredly covering his eyes. Of course this would only happen to him, probably the only passenger on board right now.

Martin really hopes that this won’t take too long because if it does it will be way too late to get any good sleep and he’ll have to call in sick tomorrow. He doesn’t like to lie at his job most of the time but there is a limit to how much he is willing to go through for the institute. Being sleep deprived is one of the those things he isn’t going to put up with just to get money. He’s not a workaholic like Jon, he can handle not coming every once in a while.

Looking out the metro window all Martin sees is darkness. It almost looks as if the carriage he’s in is buried but that’s just his imagination. The thought creeps Martin out a bit but it leaves his mind as soon as the next song comes on.

The first few notes of Gimme!Gimme!Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) and suddenly Martin doesn’t care about getting home late. To say Martin loves ABBA would be an understatement.

Seeing as nobody else is around and Martin is stuck underground he decides to get up and start dancing. He can only hope there are no cameras in the metro car he’s in otherwise he’d probably die of embarrassment.

At some point he starts dancing AND singing not really caring about anything. He sometimes feels like he’s hitting the walls in front and behind of himself but he does not care in the slightest about that because the song he’s currently listening to is just that good. He keeps his eyes closed the entire time to try to not be self-conscious.

By the end of the song he’s a bit flushed and his voice is a bit hoarse but he’s happy. He doesn’t exercise nearly enough so it’s no surprise that he’s a bit out of breath.

Suddenly the carriage lurches forwards and Martin finally opens his eyes in time to catch a pole near where he was standing moments ago to stop himself from falling on the ground.

As Martin straightens himself and brushes off imaginary dust on his shirt he notices that for some reason there is a significant amount of dirt on the ground that was definitely not there before he started dancing. He tilts his head to read it and is immediately embarrassed and only a little bit creeped out. 

It reads ‘Nice moves’.

Martin looks around to try to see if anybody could have possibly, somehow, poured out dirt on the ground and written something from it, to no avail. He is entirely alone in the wagon.

The metro comes to a stop and Martin suddenly remembers that his station was next and he needs to get out. He also notices that there is someone coming onto the metro watching at him with a strange look. Then again he probably looks weird all flushed out standing up in front of a pile of dirt. He’s actually feeling more and more embarrassed as time seems to slow down just so he can feel more embarrassment for a longer period of time.

Finally, he snaps out of his reverie and steps on the pile of dirt to get out. As he’s walking out of the station he can’t help but to think that he has no idea what he’s gonna tell the others when he heads back to the archives tomorrow.


	2. Buried continued

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin takes a day off and then goes back to work. Things get a bit weird.

The day after Martin isn’t quite too sure what to make of what happened the night before. Working in the magnus archives should have prepared Martin for the weird and unusual but as of now he hadn’t really encountered anything supernatural himself. He had merely heard about it secondhand from the statements he’d be given to follow up on. He’d only ever seen the effects of the crime not the crime itself as his grandma used to say before she died.

Still, even though he knew one hundred percent that what had happened was a real supernatural encounter of some kind he knew the moment he woke up that morning that he probably wouldn’t be telling the others. They probably wouldn’t believe him.

Well Jon wouldn’t. He’d outright say that Martin had somehow hallucinated it or something because of fumes from the tube. He’d go through an entire routine of mental gymnastics until doing a triple spin in the air and landing on the conclusion that Martin was delusional and was even more stupid than he’d thought for believing something he merely thought he had seen with his own two eyes. Martin had also left the institute very late which would probably be another excuse Jon would use to justify Martin’s supposed ‘hallucination’. So he would definitely not tell Jon

Tim would probably make fun of him for dancing to ABBA in an empty metro car and not actually care about the part where Martin had a supernatural encounter. He’d probably make a joke out of it and then transform the joke into a running gag. Martin hated feeling any kind of embarrassment. So much so that even second hand embarrassment was enough to make him physically cringe, especially while watching a movie. So he would probably not tell Tim.

Sasha would... actually Sasha might believe him. She’s nice enough for it. She wouldn’t immediately discredit his words or make fun of him for them. She might tell Tim so Martin would have to make sure that he’d bring it up in a way that made it seem unimportant, to test the waters on her reaction. If she reacted badly the fact that Martin had been nonchalant about it would mean that she’d be more likely to forget about it. So he would maybe tell Sasha, maybe.

He took the day off because why not. He tells Jon through text that he’s feeling a bit under the weather and spends the rest of the day in his apartment just in case the rest of the archive crew decide to go out to eat and they somehow decide to go to the same place Martin is going by pure coincidence. He’d rather not see them at all to avoid the situation.

He makes perogies from scratch in what had probably been a very long time. His mom used to make them when she only resented his existence and not outright hated him. Lately he’d only have them at restaurants or the store bought kind where you just chuck them in boiling water. Both we’re only vaguely good.

He spends the rest of the day lazily going through previous hobbies he’d had to give up to spend more time working. Knitting was the first one he did while watching tv only to realize too late that one of the reasons he’d stopped doing it was because it hurt his back. He switched to reading a book but then got bored and started writing poetry.

Before he knew it the day had passed and was ordering supper. Martin had missed doing nothing. It had been so long since he’d just taken a day to do nothing and not be constantly worried that he would somehow come to regret not spending every waking moment thinking about his job.

Going in, day in day out had pretty much been Martin’s life for the last few years. He barely had a life outside the institute and his only real friends, or at least he hoped, were his coworkers. At first he’d just made himself be very present in institute business to make up for the fact that he had no idea what he was doing. It worked too well and now it was well known that Martin could always be asked to do any type of research any time even on the weekend because those were the expectations he’d unfortunately set up for himself. Then again this was all his fault for going into a job with a fake resume. He still managed to make mistakes and look like a ‘bumbling idiot’ as Jon so eloquently put it.

————

The day after, Martin wakes up early to take the bus to work. He thinks it better to not tempt fate. It would be just his luck for something weird to happen.

As he gets into the archives he is immediately accosted by Tim who’s wearing one of his staple shit eating grins.

“Soooooo, how is my favourite fellow archive assistant doing?” Says Tim in a tone that told Martin whatever scheme Tim had cooking up, he should not get involved. Martin doesn’t feel like he has enough goodwill stored up for Jon not to get mad.

“No.” He says simply enough, stopping Tim right in his tracks. He looks confused for a moment before his smirk is back on, although without as much noticeable gusto.

“You wound me so fellow archive assistant. I was merely asking how your condition was. I had only spoken one sentence that you shut me down dear esteemed coworker. Were my worries not worthy of being perceived as purely honest after the illness that struck you left us separated for so long? That I would only feign to care to make you go along with a nefarious scheme? For shame Martin, for shame.”

“And I’m supposed to be the romantic poet.” Martin says rolling his eyes and injecting a fair amount of sarcasm into his words after having to listen to that long of a monologue.

“I had to do theater in uni for a semester, it changed me. Plus it’s not like I would ask you to do too much, just some help with pranking Jon.”

“Yeah, ok… I’m still not gonna help you.” Martin declares before turning back to his work. 

Out of the corner of his eye he spots Tim throwing his arms up in defeat. He’s saved another onslaught of emotional manipulation when Sasha decides to enter the archives. Tim, probably deciding based on some faulty logic that she would be more likely to help him with whatever it is he wants to do, finally leaves Martin alone. Martin is relieved that he can finally do work and catch up on what he missed while he was away. The monotony of it all manages to make Martin feel tentatively happy.

At least until Jon decides to open his office door looking directly at where Martin is sitting.

“Martin, I need a word with you in my office.” Says Jon before closing his door, leaving a still silence in his wake.

‘Great.’

————

Stepping into Jon’s office is like stepping on a landmine and waiting for it to explode. The state of it certainly looks as if one went off. As Martin is probably here to be reprimanded he doesn’t think that right now is the best time to mother Jon into cleaning things up.

Maybe he should have not come in today to avoid dealing with this situation. Then again he’d have to eventually come back into work and deal with it someday, delaying it would be delaying the inevitable and making things worse. 

“You wanted to see me Jon?” asks Martin hoping to get this over with quickly so everything can go back to normal.

“Yes that’s why you’re in my office right now.” says Jon apparently oblivious to the polite chit chat usually reserved before talking to your boss. He probably does know what Martin meant and is just being impolite because he can. 

“Now that you’re here, sit down we need to have a chat.”

Martin does as he’s told and sits down. He really hopes he isn’t getting fired.

“I wanted to talk to you about yesterday.”

“I was sick.” Says Martin evenly, trying not to let his lie show too much.

“And today you’re as right as rain.” accuses Jon in a passive way where it seems like a question or simple remark but really it is not.

“Food poisoning usually lasts one to two days.” Says Martin trying to divert the conversation so Jon might start believing him. He moves his gaze from Jon to around his office once more. 

There’s a clock on the wall he’s never noticed before until now. It makes him realize that he’s never noticed it before because he’s never been at the right angle to see it, tucked between two shelves. The only way someone could spot it would be to be sitting down where he or Jon are, which makes Martin realize he’s never actually had a sit down meeting with Jon. Great, his first official meeting with Jon and it’s to get reprimanded.

“It does. In any case you didn’t miss too much work yesterday.” Says Jon. It’s a clear dismissal. One that tells Martin Jon’s given up on grilling him and just wants him to go back to work.

So Martin stands up and heads towards the door. Jon doesn’t call him back so Martin’s guess that their meeting had ended was right. However… just as he’s about to open the door leading back into the archives he stops. He turns around to face Jon again.

Jon isn’t paying him attention, already back to whatever papers he was tending to before this impromptu meeting. It takes a few moments but he eventually does notice that Martin is still in his office and looks up.

“Yes? Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?” Jon says, some amount of annoyance clearly present in his voice to try to get Martin to either spit it out or decide against telling Jon and just leaving. Both of these options probably imply that on some level that Martin is wasting his time, as always.

Martin debates against telling Jon about the weird thing that happened to him two nights ago. He told himself he wouldn’t tell Jon but this is probably the best moment to do it. He could give a statement and be done with it. Jon would at least have to try to act as if he believed Martin. He could just tell his story.

“Tim is going to try to play some kind of trick on you today Jon.”

Or not.

————

Martin keeps his head down for the rest of the day. He doesn’t look up when Tim comes to his desk to ask him one last time for help pranking Jon. He doesn’t look up when he hears crashing noises and curses. He doesn’t look up when Tim gets verbally eviscerated by Jon very publicly. He doesn’t even look up when Sasha tells Tim she was right and that it was a bad idea. He doesn’t raise his head for anything.

He only leaves his desk once Tim and Sasha leave for lunch at some restaurant nearby. He goes to the archives break room. The light above is buzzing faintly, constantly and barely there. It’s yellow hue makes Martin feel a bit sick as he waits for his leftover pierogis. They might not be the healthiest meal that ever was but Martin doesn’t really care in that specific moment. The microwave light has been broken for a while so all Martin can do is look at the microwave door where his reflection is staring back.

He goes back to his desk and eats his leftovers there while he works. The day continues to go on and Martin continues to work.

Though there is a sort of pressure building up that Martin doesn’t think he’s ever felt before. It’s not quite anxiety but it keeps pushing him down and down. Yet every time he feels like he’s about to sink into whatever it is he’s feeling the pressure lets up. He then finds himself at the surface of it, like a bottle thrown at sea being swept up by a wave only to immediately come back up immediately. This cycle continues throughout the day but it lessens over time until the pressure becomes barely there in the background. In a way it’s kind of comforting, like being hugged by one of those weighed down blankets.

“Hey Martin, want to go out with us?”asksTim snapping Martin out of his work.

“Sorry, what?”

“Do you want to go to a restaurant with us?”asks Tim once again.

“I uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Are you alright there Martin?” Asks Sasha, who Martin now notices is standing next to Tim. She’s looking at him worriedly like he might have a stroke or something. The softness in her gaze almost makes him cry but he manages to hold back.

“Yes, I’m fine. I was just a bit in my head, trying to concentrate and all.”

“Only a little bit in your head? You looked like a mindless zombie filling out paperwork.” Says Tim before getting a not so discreet elbow in the ribs courtesy of Sasha. “I mean you looked totally in The Zone.”

“Is Jon coming?” Asks Martin purposefully ignoring Tim’s comment.

“Ah yes, Boss man. Jon. Jonathan Sims. The head of the archives. The fellow of your dre”

“He hasn’t asked him yet because he still feels bad about how his prank earlier went.” Interrupts Sasha making Tim’s nonsensical babble come to a stop.

“I mean it wasn’t that bad. Right Martin?” 

“I don’t actually know what you did.”

“You don’t?” Asks Sasha a bit surprised “Jon was yelling up a ruckus after what Tim did.”

“I wasn’t really listening.”

Sasha looks at him again but this time she looks a bit more worried.

“I think I’m just going to offer to pay for whatever he orders as an apology.” Declares Tim breaking the awkward staring contest that Martin hadn’t even noticed he’d been having with Sasha.

“Be careful. He might just order the most expensive thing on the menu.”

“I think my bank account can handle a little splurging.”

“Twice.” clarifies Sasha.

“I can handle it.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Look I actually consider Jon my friend and I upset his feelings so yes, I’ll pay for whatever acquired old man tastes he has.” finally says Tim.

“Wow. I wish somebody would pay for my acquired old man tastes.” says Sasha

“I just might.”

“Perhaps another time mister Stoker.”

It’s at this moment that Martin zones out of their conversation and realizes he is once again in that awkward position where he really, really doesn’t want to get involved in whatever is going in front of him.

Thankfully Jon decides to take that exact moment to walk out of his office and talk to Martin. Coincidentally Tim and Sasha decide to abruptly change subjects in the blink of an eye to the history of pineapple and it’s excruciatingly high prices in the olden days.

“Martin, did you finish doing the research for the statements assigned yesterday and today?” Asks Jon ignoring Tim and nodding only slightly to acknowledge Sasha’s presence.

“Yes. I finished those and the ones due next week too.”

“Ah that’s uh very um good.” Says Jon, clearly not expecting the answer given.

“Hey boss do you want to go out?”

———

After having managed to convince Jon to go out and then argued on a restaurant,the archive gang, as Tim liked to call them, had headed out. They were going to the new Italian place a few streets away. They would have to pass through a park but it wouldn’t take too long.

What had, at first, been a faint drizzle made itself known as a storm when it started pouring. They had all started running with Tim as the one leading them in, hopefully, the right direction.

Finally, they arrived at the restaurant, completely drenched head to toe in water.

“Aww shucks. I really liked those boots.”

“They’re fine Sasha. Just scrub them.”

“Scrub them? Are you crazy Jon? This is leather! It’s already wet, scrubbing them would only ruin them more.”

While Jon and Sasha were arguing Martin took the time to take in the restaurant. It was modern, that much you could tell by the insane amount of plants that were growing in large rectangular planter boxes behind the table booths. Yet it also had a touch of old, antics that were too pretty to be anything but originals hung up (and probably nailed) high on the walls so that nobody could touch them. The lights glowed a soft orange hue giving the whole place a homely warm vibe.

“Table for four please.” Says Tim to the host at the entrance.

“Do you have a reservation?”

“No.”

“Alright, follow me.”

Tim and Martin do follow the host leaving Sasha and Jon behind. They eventually realize they’ve been abandoned and leave their spat at the door to catch up. By the time they do they don’t even seem to remember arguing, let alone what they were talking about.

“Everything looks so good.” Says Tim looking at the menu “What are you guys gonna take?”

“Not telling you or you’re gonna order less and decide to steal from our plates.” Says Sasha.

Tim looks at her for a moment without blinking and then promptly says “I’ve taught you too well.”

They continue talking as such, Martin somewhat fading into the background until Sasha or Tim real him back into the conversation. Before long they’ve ordered and received their food and are eating it with zest.

They eventually finish eating and while waiting for the bill, Martin realizes he has maybe spent too much of the meal looking at Jon. Of course Tim, who’s sitting next to him, would manage to notice at the same as Martin does and give him a smirk.

“So Martin, anything you’d like to say to our esteemed head archivist?” asks Tim very loudly like the menace he is.

All eyes turn to Martin because of course Tim doesn’t have the foresight to remember that Martin hates being the center of attention. He probably does and is just doing this because he likes to be annoying. Whatever the case Martin is taking too long to answer and the more time he spends answering the less likely Jon is to believe whatever comes out of his mouth.

Thankfully, Martin is saved from having to answer when suddenly one of the walls of the planter boxes decides to give up and let go. Bringing all the dirt it was holding down onto Martin’s side of the booth. More specifically on Tim.

“Oh my god!” Screams Tim.

They quickly get up and help Tim clean up. The server is helpful enough to lead Tim to the bathroom to clean up. Martin for the most part is clean, the dirty seemingly having gone around him. Tim gets back still somewhat dirty but with less dirty accumulated on them. The owner personally comes out to apologize even though they probably had nothing to do with it.

As they’re leaving Martin can’t help but notice that Jon is looking at him strangely.

———

Martin decides to walk back to his apartment. It stopped raining a while ago and now it is merely humid. He also still doesn’t really feel like taking the metro so if he starts feeling tired he’ll just take the bus. The streets are mostly empty and no one is around. If Martin were to ever get shanked this would be the perfect time for it to happen.

After a while though he gets tired and decides to take a rest. Just as leans against a fire escape off the side of a building with all his weight, he hears rattling from up above. He looks up just in time to see a plant pot falling towards his face at rapid speeds.

Martin goes through the five stages of grief as time slows down enough for him to realize ‘this is how I die’.

Then the pot, mid air still falling, moves decisively to the left and crashes on the ground. Time then regains its normal speed and Martin is left jaw slack open staring at the fallen broken pot in front of him.

It takes him a few moments but Martin eventually puts two and two together. Dirt, dirt is the answer. Throughout the night dirt has not been acting as it should and it took Martin almost dying to realise that something was wrong. Maybe Jon is right, maybe he is an idiot.

Whatever the case, whatever happened isn’t a fluke. Once is just a happy accident. Twice is good luck, but three times is a pattern. A pattern that Martin can only guess means that the entity he encountered on the metro is following him or to some extent watching him.

It doesn’t seem to want to hurt him going by previous instances of its manifestations. Although burying a friend isn’t exactly the best way to show that you care about the wellbeing of somebody.

Martin decides to give up on walking back home and simply takes the bus. Leaving behind the broken pot and other dirt related thoughts to another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I had this idea a while ago and wrote it in my notes where it's been sitting until now. If you liked it feel free to leave a kudos and check out my tumblr @whooly-shep


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